Happy Things

Okay. Since I am personally now BORED by my own ranty-panty-pissy-pity-party, I shall move on to Many Happier Things. Because--believe it or not?--they're STILL THERE.

But first of all, in fairness, I owe Firefly an apology.

From that last post, one would think that all she does is bitch me out for my bad choices, which could not in a billion years be further from the truth. I mean that. We are the Head Bitches In Charge Of Picking Up Each Other's Pieces, and for me to characterize her the way that last post came off was...just not cool. I think I was going by how hard I would beat HER ass under the same circumstances, and it's always a mistake to ascribe your OWN deficiencies to someone ELSE. So, FF--I'm sorry, monster. That came out WAYYYY worse than I meant for it to do.

Moving right along to happyland:

Item One, Happy Report.
My computer?? Is ALIVE!!! Is HEALTHY!!!!! Totally FAILED to cost me the $300-odd dollars I had braced myself to pay!!!! Cost me only $60--including installation!--to repair my frizzle-frazzled power supply. I seriously almost did the Happy Wiggle-Dance in front of the Firedog guy at Circuit City. But I was afraid it would turn him on, so I forbore.

But for SERIOUS--$60 instead of $300? is CAUSE for the wiggle-dance. I could simply NOT be any more happy about the outcome of that whole debacle.

Item Two, Happy Report:
This neighborhood I've moved into?
Is THA SHIZZ. No kidding. I knew it was all artsy and progressive and stuff, but: there is the Place-Where-I-Live-Now Art Center. And yes, I'm late to the party, and yes, I could have been doing this for MONTHS now, but I wasn't even introduced to the Maroonland Art Center til the beginning of summer. Their summer session? Looked promising, but didn't grab me enough to make me plunk down cash and drag my butt out of work early to get to a class on time.
Their FALL session?
Practically sexual in nature.
So Indecisive-Little-Ol-Me is now faced with the choice of the following--and this is pared down only to the stuff that INTERESTS me at the moment:

Abstract Painting/Drawing--Acrylic Painting--Beginning Drawing--Beginning Painting--Ceramic Tiles--Intro to Printmaking--Knitting--Mosaics--Photography I--Quick Quilting--Silkscreen.

First: NOT COOL. Too many choices makes Gladys go Wocka-Wocka-Wocka.
Second: OMFG SOOOOOOO EFFING COOL! Because what I don't do in the fall? I can do in the spring. And what I don't do in the spring? I can do NEXT fall. Which is so very OMFG as to require smelling-salts.

To say the very very least, I am looking forward to the fall.

Item Three: Happy Report--
No word from CR.
Yes, I know, that's a Happy and a Sad all boiled up together. Don't care. He's...I don't really have words for what he is, just now. "A mommy-fixated infant" comes about as close to the meat of things as I care to go. I'd just so very much forgotten: a) how many things about him I actually LIKED, once; and b)how very, utterly toxic and hateful and soul-draining he could be. So, yeah, I still have feelings for him; but no, that's not something that will ever come to fruition. I've learned--even since just this last time, I've learned--but still I'm pissed at myself for letting it go even THAT far. I feel played, actually. I was lucky to escape as easily as I have, but I still feel ashamed of myself. (And on some level, I'm afraid he may instigate some more chaos, so to speak--waiting for the other shoe to drop, the way it always did in the past. We shall see what happens there.)

I am just TIRED unto the edges of the universe of feeling SORRY. For myself, for others, for mistakes I've made; for who I am and what I believe. I think sometimes--god help me--but if my mom wasn't around? That I'd be able to be ME with much more energy and valor than I've ever yet been able to do, with eleven months' exception. I want to wear long foofy dresses and get a tattoo and piercings and a girlfriend, and wear my hair LONG LONG LONG. And the only reason I DON'T is because of the constant stream of criticism that would ensue. And don't think for a red moment that that means I don't love my mother--I do, very much, and I will miss her when she's gone--but I wish she didn't need for me to be so much a carbon copy of her, or some validation of her choices, or whatever-it-is I am to her. I'm certainly not an individual, or a person, or a separate human being. (The other day she said something about "we never had such technology when -I- was growing up!" As if, at nearly-40, I'm still "growing up". There are some things that I just can't get around, you know? I'll be 39 next birthday and in some ways I still--because my mother does too--see myself as "a kid". How do you go about making a separate, sensible, functioning life for yourself when you still, subconsciously, see yourself as a twelve-year-old?? Debbi and I have talked about that at length, but with no conclusions.)

I am not sad. I am not -very- sad, anyway. My life is a great thing, if I look at it from MY OWN standpoint. If I stop judging by "what should have been" or "what I -should have- done" or "what was expected"--I have had an incredible, colorful, adventurous life. Punctuated by tragedy and the occasional hardship, sure--but what amazing life HASN'T been strewn with wreckage? I'd rather have MORE wreckage, than less--if only I didn't have to EXPLAIN it to anyone. If only I could just say "You know what? Yeah, I did that. It is what it is. It's MINE, is what it is, and unless you're me--which you are TOTALLY not--you're in no position to make value judgements."

If anything? My life would have MORE excitement, not less. I don't know what that says about me, other than: a) I'm alive; and b) at some sad, pathetic core level, I am every bit as subjected to one person's judgements, as CR is to another's. Maybe THAT's why we always got along so well--because in one way or another, each of us was forever being controlled by that shady, behind-the-scenes female puppeteer, each polling our strings and trying, for her own ends, to control us--even if it was done with love, even if it was done with the understanding of "what was best" for each of us. Maybe that's why he and I are, emotionally at least, tangled together, even though each of us recognizes how very, very STUPID that entanglement really is.

I don't know. What I know: I'm happy, really; and there is spaghetti on the stove with my name on it, and everything in my life, when you subtract the STOOPID shit, is really well-and-truly better than it has been in a long, long while.

So...um....yeah. That's it. :)